The Green Ember Review - Cave To The Cross

The Green Ember By S. D. Smith

Synopsis:

Heather and Picket are just your ordinary rabbits who are playing in the field until one day their father starts to tell them of a king struck down but whose Camelot prophecy can still come about. Before they learn more their house is attacked and now they must run with someone claiming to be an uncle they never met and his friend. They must escape the wolves and hawks and see if they can join the fight for the rise of the new kingdom of peace for rabbit kind.

Video

Review

I too join the sacrilege of the small group of Christian homeschool parents that was very disappointed with this book. I do have to say that my 7-year-old enjoyed it and said she would continue the series and I’m not opposed to having her do that. There isn’t anything vulgar or cruel or any other red flag that comes with modern-day literature. I also did appreciate that she did say that she enjoyed The Hobbit more (which we finished together before this book) and she wants to continue the LoTR series next. Raising them right!

What drove me to really not like this book is the pacing and the proses. In there is the setting and story for a good series. While I can see the parallels of wanting it to be LoTR meets Watership Down, but it is just using a story that happens to involve anthropomorphized rabbits and wolves and etc. to this light fantasy story. The opening and the ending are also strong for the story; with the ending lifting up my crestfallen take a bit.

Let me start with the pacing of the book first as I think if this was maybe 200 or fewer pages it would be a bit more to stomach. The book has a lot of running. The first third of the story is mostly a number of the main characters running and too much so. And after they are done running they stop and they run some more. The arc of this part of the story doesn’t allow for tension release and everything is hurried too much. I get they are rabbits and so running is a thing for them; however, the author makes it a point of having the characters talk about how they’re almost out of energy. But then there are three more running scenes. After that, almost 2/3rds of the book moves us to a single location and a dead stop of getting to know the space with revelations and plot spread out quite a bit to a crawling pace. Where I thought this book was going to run me right out of pages at the beginning and not let any release from the tension it does just the opposite of that in the middle and that’s where it was a chore to get through.

The second big issue I had with the book is the plot and motivation. Our main characters learn about King Jupiter only slightly and are completely enamored and worshipping of him. They dream about him, cry over him, and long for him. But they are barely told anything and we’re not even sure the initial tale is about a real king. There is no real description of what made him great or anything of real inspiration to drive the characters until a full telling of the legend almost 2/3rds of the way into the book. What motivation they should have had was on the missing family which really takes a backseat as any sort of understandable driving factor.

The two main characters of pretty annoying too. I understand that they are young and this type of character trait would be of normal characteristic. However, the author uses it as motivation for both and it’s not clear why they take the positions they do. Heather is an allegedly amazing storyteller but she’s too scared to commit to it. Why? No clue. She is also always insightful and pretty much correct on all things except when the story calls on her not to be for the sake of plot reveal. Picket is really turned off to another main character and he feels like he failed. He recognizes he doesn’t have any real reason to feel this way but just commits to it. The author uses this as a character arc for him but it doesn’t really endear him to the reader and it doesn’t really make sense for the arc he wants to be on. There is an arc in him and you could have it be about growing up quickly due to war and loss but mostly it’s about him overcoming whinny-ness and barely so.

Characters around them also move at a snail’s pace with revelation but for no real reason except for this not-so-secret initiation ritual. Yet, characters still give them a grand tour and free reign around this super secret compound and to get to the ritual takes forever from their first arrival. A loss of any sense of time gripped me in this book – days? Months? Minor characters only treat them worse after the main characters realize the bigger story. And their reaction to those revelations are pretty over the top for anyone their age and removal from this world. For example, they are concerned about a possible loss of honor and denying betrayal are met with a literal outcry. Do they have any clue what honor is or why it matters in a family context? That’s really unclear. The writing of it all is very clunky and disjointed. That mixed with the pacing of it makes it a real choir to keep going.

There are a few plot points and characters that go towards there being a good story in there. However, the too fast and then too slow pacing and the poor character development work against it. I’m sure I’ll be tied to a stake and poked with little swords while listening to the next one as punishment but this just wasn’t a well-written book.

Final Grade

D+